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Friday, December 30, 2005

Server into, etc. Server into, etc.

Months ago I blogged on my travails in getting my various (four) computers up and operational together. I have been running a mail server for several months now, and it has worked out quite well. It actually is a bit faster in many cases, since when I am sending or checking mail, I only need to communicate with an adjacent computer, at 100 mbs. And I was able to add SMTP headers to my outgoing mail that included confidentiality information.

I still use my ISP as backup for my email. I do this by having two DNS MX records for my domains. The lower priority MX record points at my ISP's email server, and the higher priority MX record points at my dedicated IP address. So, whenever anyone tries to email me, they first try my dedicated IP address, and if that fails, send to my ISP's email server.

I do something similar on the outgoing side. My default SMTP server for outgoing email is my own server, but I use my two ISPs as backup. Thus, when my server is down, my email still goes out - though this really doesn't make sense, since when it is down, I just switch my KVM switch to that machine and reboot, since all the local computers use the same Keyboard, Video monitor, and Mouse.

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Added blogging feature Added blogging feature

One problem with blogger software is that you inevitably end up wading through long posts as you scroll through blogs. In my sonyrootkit.blogspot.com blog, I was dumping a lot of links into the blog, with short comments attached to most of them, with little analysis. So, I went looking for a better way of doing things.

Blogger in its help section provides two different ways of opening and closing blog entries. Both require modifying your blog template. The first requires that you add special code to each blog entry. The result was that your blog entries are in two parts, one part always visible, and the second appearing only when clicked. This worked somewhat, and can be made easier by adding a blog entry template. But it was still a pain, and didn't really look that good. In particular, I disliked that it applied to both short and long blog entries.

The second approach opened and closed each blog entry in its entirety. At first glance, that seemed worse than the first approach, because you would need to open up even the shortest. But then, as I worked with the blog template, I realized that the answer to my problem was to open up my short blog entries, but not my long ones.

In the end, I couldn't quite do that exactly, or rather, didn't devote enough time to get it just right. But what I was able to accomplish was when you moved your cursor over a blog entry, it would open up (and stay open) if it were a small entry, but would stay shut if larger (but would display the blog entry size in the status area). I did this by using the ONMOUSEOVER HTML command. The ONMOUSEOVER would invoke a javascript function whenever the mouse was over specified text that checked the blog entry size and opened it if below a certain limit. Initially, I put the ONMOUSEOVER on the anchor (A) element with the open/close code. But later, I put it on a DIV (division) element that covered the entire blog entry.

The result worked fairly well. As you scrolled down through the blog, shorter blog entries would automatically open for you as your cursor went over the closed blog entries, but longer blog entries would stay closed until manually opened.

If I were running that blog another month or so, and had some more free time, I think that my next attempt would be to try to link the blog entries together so that when you opened one, either explicitly, or through passing the cursor over a shorter one, the other blog entries would close. It shouldn't be that hard. Every time either an entry is opened, whether explicitly, or automatically via ONMOUSEOVER, it is chained to the other blog entries, if not already in the chain. Then, the chain is run, forcing closed all the other blog entries, while this one is opened. Or maybe a slightly different effect if I force closed all other blog entries on each ONMOUSEOVER. The difference is that with the first approach, once one blog entry is open, there will be precisely one blog entry open henceforth. With the second, there is at most one blog entry open (though there may be none).

This is both the upside and downside of being a programmer at heart.

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Sony settling lawsuits Sony settling lawsuits

I haven't been blogging here for the last month or so because I have spent my extra time trying to keep track of the Sony BMG DRM situation at sonyrootkit.blogspot.com. But most, if not all, of the major lawsuits seem to be settling, and if so, there won't be any point in continuing that blog, which means that I should be blogging more here.

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Monday, December 12, 2005

CNET News.com: eBay halts auction of Excel flaw CNET News.com: eBay halts auction of Excel flaw

The marvels of modern technology: eBay halts auction of Excel flaw:
"An online auction of a "brand new vulnerability" in Microsoft Excel had reached about $60 when eBay pulled the item late Thursday."

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

BREITBART.COM - Hecklers Cause Coulter to Cut UConn Speech BREITBART.COM - Hecklers Cause Coulter to Cut UConn Speech

BREITBART.COM - Hecklers Cause Coulter to Cut UConn Speech: "Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session."

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Day by Day Day by Day

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